The Bitter Coldness of Railings
by DancingPhalangess
Summary: Kate's toes are balancing on the edge of the bridge, but there's a man behind her who just won't go away. AU.


**TW for suicidal thoughts. One shot. **

The railings were cold beneath her hands, even with the gloves. Like the sharp chill of a snowman's head. Kate wrapped her fingers around it firmly, clinging to it as if it were hanging her above a rage of rapids. She wondered if she should do something more significant than just hop on. Perhaps lift her head to the winter breeze, feel it one last time on her burning skin. But that felt too unsure. Someone who still wanted _one last time _did not really want to die.

"Do you like coffee?"

Kate jumped, dragging in the ice from the air as she gasped.

"The barista messed up my order, now I have two coffees and I have to be up in three hours." The stranger continued as if he had not almost startled her into toppling right over the edge. It would have saved her a jump. He was watching her, waiting for her response and there was warmth gleaming in his dark eyes, like a crackling fire on Christmas Eve.

She lied. "No." There was no time for drinks with strangers. And the thought of just taking it with a polite thanks then tossing it into the river as soon as he was gone felt almost worse than what she was about to do.

"Oh. Well I think I'll stand here and drink mine, I've always loved this view." He shrugged. "And you're hot."

_No. _

"Actually, I was hoping to be alone," she said, as sharply as the bitter wind that clipped at their cheekbones.

Kate's gaze was fixed on the sky brushing the surface of the water, but she could feel his on her.

"What's your name?" he asked, as if she had invited him to join her for a glass of wine.

If she didn't answer, perhaps he would go away.

"I'm Rick," he offered. Huh. Rick. The same name as-

Her eyes flicked back towards him, gaging the familiarity of his tousled hair, his boyish grin. Richard Castle, the man who had dragged her this far.

"Ah, so you do recognise me," he quipped, his smirk twisting his lips into an arrogant smirk.

Kate scowled at him. She definitely wasn't going to tell him her name now. But she couldn't jump until he was gone. As annoying as this man was, with one side of his scarf longer than the other and a cardboard cup of coffee in each hand, she could not make him watch.

He leaned in the empty space beside her, his elbows against the snow cold railings, so close that she could feel the heat of his body, like an ember from the flames in his eyes. "Are you sure you don't want this coffee? I'll only pour it down the sink." He was persistent, she would give him that.

"Fine."

Castle beamed, despite the bite in her voice and handed her one of the cups. She couldn't feel its warmth through her gloves, but she didn't have the hands to take them off. It was a small thing to care about given the reason she lingering on the edge of the bridge, but she'd always loved the way her morning cup would warm her hands, especially in this weather when the wind gnawed at the skin. And it was the last one she would drink. The last coffee, on a bridge, in the stubborn darkness of early morning with Richard Castle. If she'd envisioned this scene beyond the end, her mind would not have clawed this from the barrel.

She took a sip, and although it was no longer scalding, it burned her frozen lips. It was bitter, too. No vanilla.

"Not to your standards, Miss…"

"Beckett."

_Damn. _

Castle smirked and Kate's hand twitched on the cup to slap it away. She wanted it to be over, and he was there, giving her shitty coffee and hanging around as if they were old friends. They weren't even new friends, they were nothing, she was nothing, so why couldn't he just leave her alone? The question burned on her tongue, hotter than the coffee, but she swallowed it down. She couldn't give him another clue.

"So, Beckett, what's wrong with my coffee?"

"It's bitter. I prefer vanilla lattes." Maybe if she was rude enough, he would go away. But she had as good as told him to almost as soon as he had arrived, and still he lingered, as if he wanted to hold her hand and stop her from falling.

The last of the moonlight seemed to catch in his eyes. "Ah, a sweet tooth. You're as bad as my daughter."

_Daughter? _It didn't mention that in the dustcover. But then, it wouldn't. Richard Castle, the player with the schoolboy hair couldn't be a father. It was comforting to know, somehow. Whatever happened tonight, he would have someone to go home to.

"How old is she?" Kate asked before she could bite it in.

"Four. Her name's Alexis. She's more grown up than I am." His voice was laced with pride and the sudden glow of warmth had nothing to do with the coffee.

But then she remembered herself. "Not hard," she sniped.

Castle laughed. "Believe it or not, I'm the responsible parent."

"Then shouldn't you be at home with her?" He was divorced, she knew that much. She couldn't remember the woman's name, but she must have been Alexis' mother. Unless the girl was a gift from his one night stands.

"My mother's there. They're both asleep. I was writing, but I got stuck, so I came out here for…inspiration."

And he just had to look for his _inspiration, _on this one night, this one bridge, this one hour. If he'd come by just minutes later, she would have been gone. It was strange, how the writer whose twisted words had guided her, blundering, through the first year without her mother, was here now. A real person with a constant voice and a superior smirk, on the night his prints on a page had no longer been enough.

"Have you found it?"

His gaze lingered on her, twinkling as if they'd captured the starlight. "Maybe."

She had to jump. Jump or run or-

"Hey, where are you going?" She ignored him, but Castle's hand shot out, closing around her elbow with the desperation of a lost child. "Beckett." Then she was facing him, sending up a spray of snow and she spun on her heel.

"Why are you here?" she demanded, rage burning in her chest, scratching its way up her throat and out of her mouth in a snarl.

"Inspiration," he tried again, hopelessly.

Kate snarled. "Right. Do you always buy coffee for strangers, or are you thinking of putting this in a book?"

Because they both knew he hadn't been given an extra coffee. Baristas didn't do that. Not when there was only one drink to remember. Now Richard Castle was looking at her like she was the last baby bird in a fallen nest and her hand twitched to fling his bitter drink into his face and melt off the concern.

_Just leave me alone, Castle. _

Did she say that out loud or had her voice been stolen by the wind?

"I couldn't just walk by."

He sounded as if he was pleading. Like she was still tottering on the edge of the bridge, holding his daughter's hand. "Well now you've done your duty, so let me go home."

"So you can swallow a bottle of pills?" She winced. "No, Beckett. You can go back home, or go to a coffee house, or even come back to my loft. I'm not leaving."

She wanted to scream. She wanted to rip the crease in his forehead away with her hands. She wanted to throw his coffee into the river and leap in after it and she would, she would, she _would. _She'd come here to die and going back wasn't an option. But it wasn't desperate pleas or snarling rage that erupted from her. Somehow, it was calm that seeped like a wisp of smoke from her lips.

"Pretty sure that's illegal."

"So call the cops, give a statement. That'll keep you busy for a few hours too."

Ten minutes ago, her hands had been on the rails. She had been ready to haul herself up and drop from the other side, she'd been ready for the end. Until a writer with coffee had shown up and refused to leave. A man she had never met. The _why _of it all scorched her lips, but the question stayed firmly locked behind them.

The answer could be worse than his _maybe. _

"God, Castle. Do you even know what you sound like? You're like a bad script from some Christmas movie. The great _guardian angel _of the bridge."

"Well good, if this is a bad Christmas movie, you won't jump."

"Who even said I was going to jump? This isn't a movie, Castle. Or one of your dumb books."

She wanted to storm away again, that time not let him pull her back, but it was like the snow had frozen around her feet. She couldn't even tear her eyes away from the worry knitted onto his features, worry that made no sense.

"No one who doesn't want to jump looks at the edge like that."

Something in her crumpled, falling between the railings and tumbling to the chopping waters below. "Please leave me alone." Hot shame filled her like lava at the hitched plea, but the tears were already leaving a path along her numb cheeks.

"No."

A sob burst from her and she gasped, struggling with the air that would freeze the rest. She slumped against the railings, the wrong side, a fist crushed against her mouth to hold in her cries. She wasn't allowed to cry, she wasn't allowed to cry, shewasntallowedtocry.

"Please tell me your first name."

She couldn't fight any more. She could barely even keep herself standing. "Kate." It fell from her lips as gentle as the flakes of snow that were beginning to drift from the morning clouds. It fell into the lake of coffee that had tumbled from her hand.

"Give me a month, Kate."

She turned to him with silent tears creeping from her eyes. "A month?" It was impossibly long. 31 days.

"Until the end of this one, then."

19 days.

He had kept a gap between them. She would have thought this pushy, persistent man would have bridged it in an instant, tried something ridiculous, like hugging her, as if the arms of a stranger could keep her together (even though his words had). But he had stayed several feet away in his own patch of snow, giving her space yet refusing to leave.

It was a bad idea. A terrible idea. He couldn't fix her and she was only going to drag him in deeper, knock him down harder when she was gone. But she had already let him linger. She had already nodded.

"Great." He grinned like a schoolboy who'd got a date with his five year crush.

"Wanna get some more coffee? I know a place that does great vanilla lattes."

The sky was lighter now, but the sun not yet up. It was too early to be standing on a bridge with Richard Castle, too cold to be standing outside at all, so she nodded again.

They would start with a coffee.

**Inspiration for this kind of came from a book, but I haven't actually read it. I just read the blurb in Sainsbury's, but I can't remember the author or title. So that's really useful. Still, if anyone knows it, here's a sort of disclaimer. **

**I wasn't going to post this, but there's always Christmas to cheer me up if you all hate it. Have a good one, everybody. **


End file.
